Introducing: The Underground Film Timeline

By Mike Everleth ⋅ July 7, 2010

I am pleased to announce a new addition to the Underground Film Journal’s Underground Film Resources section. It’s the Underground Film Timeline, a chronological listing of significant events, films and filmmakers in underground film history.

Of course, in typical Underground Film Journal fashion, I’m probably announcing this project way ahead of when I actually should be. That means, yeah, it’s currently a bit skimpy, but it has enough content to give a sense of where it’s going, so I wanted to show it off already.

Current plans for the project call for me to cull the data to include in the timeline from books, not off of the Internet. Yes, that means the same books found in the Underground Film Journal’s Underground Film Bibliography. As of right now, I’ve only included data from Sheldon Renan’s indispensable An Introduction to the American Underground Film. But, I already have some content culled from a few other books that I’ll be adding in bits and pieces.

I guess the seeds for the timeline were planted during my 1970s Underground Film Yearbook series from two years ago, which I began because I couldn’t easily find the information from that time period on the Internet. Sure, there’s plenty of underground film history scattered around the web that one could piece together. But, my ultimate goal with the timeline is to have everything in one convenient, browsable location for those who are interested in this stuff. Or, more hopefully, to create interest in underground film history in those who haven’t been exposed to it yet or haven’t taken the time yet to really dig in.

Also, putting information in timeline format really just helps me personally envisioning the “big picture” as it were. I know even when I’m reading books on the subject, the history is generally presented in a linear fashion, but do tend to skip around in time especially when it comes to focusing in on a specific filmmaker then going back and focusing in on another.

I do hope eventually to tie the timeline in with my other website the Underground Film Guide, which focuses on particular filmmakers and films. Hopefully, I can create a fluid bouncing back and forth for those who like this information presented linearly and those who like it by subject — or for whatever mood one is in on a particular day.

Although, I do recognize that working on these big projects while also trying to blog regularly is a huge, probably impossible task, but one has to dream big, I suppose.